`Devastating Day For Fbi` Slain Gunmen Called Vicious, Cold-blooded

April 12, 1986|By Jonathon King, Staff Writer

Ruthlessly violent, vicious and cold-blooded were the terms police used to describe the two men who died in a gunfight in which two FBI agents were killed and five others wounded Friday morning in south Dade County.

Sought for half a dozen armored car and bank robberies over several months, Michael Platt, 32, and William R. Matix, 34, had already left a trail of bodies and blood before they were killed by agents` returned gunfire in the quiet Kendall neighborhood.

All the incidents, including Friday`s, bear the same deadly signatures of the now dead suspects: heavy armament that included assault rifes -- a Ruger Mini- 14 and a Colt AR-15 -- as well as shotguns and semi-automatic pistols.

On Jan. 10, Brink`s messenger Ernesto Maranje had pulled a hand truck from the back of his armored car on his way to make a pickup at a Barnett Bank at U.S. 1 and 135th Street in south Dade.

As Maranje turned, a man wearing a ski mask stepped out of a nearby car and without warning fired a shotgun blast into Maranje`s stomach.

According to witnesses, a second man got out of the car, and, standing over the bleeding courier, fired two more shots into Maranje with an automatic rifle.

The men, thought to have been the same two who were killed Friday, then coolly unloaded two duffle bags from the armored car and fled into a Kendall neighborhood only blocks from the scene of Friday`s shoot-out.

Maranje miraculously survived his wounds. Police said others confronted by the suspects were not as fortunate.

Metro-Dade detectives working the robbery cases traced the suspects to a west Dade rock pit frequented by target shooters, where police say that with high- powered, rapid-fire weapons used by paramilitary groups and survivalists they stalked at least three victims.

On March 12, the two forced Jose Collazo, a 30-year-old target shooter at the rock pit, into the water and then fired four shots into him before stealing his car and leaving him for dead.

Collazo survived by playing dead at the water`s edge and was able to give police a description of the two. The two men killed by agents Friday morning were driving Collazo`s black Chevrolet Monte Carlo when they were stopped. The same man was called in by Metro-Dade police on Friday to identify Platt and Matix as the men who attacked them. Police did not say whether Collazo could identify the pair.

The car used in the shooting of Brinks guard Maranje was traced to Emilio Briel, a missing northwest Dade man who was last seen Oct. 5 after telling relatives he was going to the rock pit south of the Tamiami Trial at 157th Avenue for target practice. Police think he was murdered by the same two men.

In addition, the skeleton of another possible victim was recovered in the area of the rock pit March 1.